OREANDA-NEWS. Lighting Technologies, Russia's largest supplier of lighting solutions, has improved employee communications and reduced time-to-market for its products thanks to a unified communications system connecting the company's Industrial Design Bureau with its production site in the city of Ryazan (located approximately 200 km southeast of Moscow). The entire project- from system design through deployment to final setup-took just five months, cost RUB 2.3 million and was implemented by CROC.

“Our company competes successfully with the leading European manufacturers of energy-efficient lighting solutions. To keep up with current trends, we have to continue expanding our product portfolio and increasing quality. Due to the geographically distributed nature of our business (our production site is in Ryazan and our head office is in Moscow), we were looking for a solution that would improve information exchange between our branches. Unified communications help us to quickly contact the right employee, arrange a team session with colleagues from other cities and collaborate on project documentation-all of which results in faster decision-making. The unified communications system is designed for 5,000 employees and in the future it can be connected to our branches in other regions of Russia and the CIS,” comments Mikhail Kudinov, Development and Business Technology Director at Lighting Technologies.

Stanislav Cherkov, Head of Unified Communications at CROC explains, “It was a unique project. When implementing unified communications systems, customers usually opt to stop using their previous telecommunication solutions. However, Lighting Technologies decided to continue using its Asterisk private branch exchange by integrating it with Lync 2013. This allowed the customer to protect past investments and obtain additional functionality, such as the ability to teamwork and resolve tasks out-of-office, using a phone headset. For us, the customer's wishes were challenging as Asterisk products have less potential than other contemporary solutions when it comes to integration with the Microsoft communications client. However, we have completed the objective and today the company enjoys robust communications.”

“Microsoft offers enterprise social communications capabilities and guarantees security and confidentiality, which are essential in business. Lync brings remote communications and meetings to a brand new level, no matter where employees are. Lync 2013 has a new interface and extended functionality, such as user-friendly mobile and tablet versions, Skype support, and multi-point video conferencing. The product's multi-functionality and telephony support attracts Russian customers looking to increase teamwork effectiveness,” adds Alexander Zatesa, Lync Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Russia.